Could false advertising lead to lawsuits?

[BigSarj]

Add to that the "PS5 exclusive" in the announcement trailer.

 

[breeminator]

I suspect selling might have been in the game, but removed. It makes a huge difference to be able to sell cars because if you're trying to find, for example, the best Gr.3 car for a daily race, each time you try one and it's slower than the best one you've tried so far, you could just sell it to fund buying the next one to try. It would hugely reduce the credits required to try out every car in the game. So it's easy to imagine someone thinking it would be great to "encourage" people to spend thousands of real world currency instead.

 

[O604]

I don't think it's even close to solid.

The "reasonable person" test (a legal standard) would be enough to show that "over 400 cars", with the "over 400 car" Car Collection page that only counts separate models in conjunction with the "over 400 cars" advertising of the game's total number of vehicles, would be taken to mean more than 400 discrete cars rather than 60 cars in 6.6 different colours each.

And then you have the absence of an advertised (unqualified) function, and the omission from the storefront of the always online requirement.


Also we're talking a GLO (or Class Action in the USA) rather than one individual litigating. If any such action is taken (and the door is wide open) I reckon there's a high chance of success.

You have more faith in the legal system than I do. Let's live in your world.

It's not solid.

 

[CamPatUK]

The Italian page of the store has no mention about selling cars

View attachment 1127905

Is it possible that "sell your way through a solo campaing" has a different meaning rather than selling cars?

No, there's no other meaning. But it's interesting to see that there are regional differences. I wonder how the Japanese looks. Not that this has a bearing on the accuracy of the English speaking pages it just indicates how the error might have occurred. I don't think it is malicious but that doesn't mean that it's not grounds for a refund (if one were so inclined).

 

[Riptide]

Entirely disagree.

The game is being sold, right now, with that feature advertised. It is included in the store description, both on the web interface and console interface, for the PS Store. It is not in the game.

It's not flagged as something that will come in a future update, there's no fine print, and there's no footnotes. The store that actually sells you the game says it is a function of the game without qualification... and it is not.

That is absolutely enough on its own to merit a refund under UK consumer law: product does not function as advertised. And that's enough on its own to prompt a GLO for users who cannot get a refund due to buying it from PS Store (the place which promotes the game based on this absent function).

The issue here is that it... doesn't. It doesn't say an internet connection is required, except in the specific circumstance of online racing. It states an extent, but not the full extent - and you can easily see how a consumer could be misled into thinking that the connection is required for online racing but not anything else.

I know this is the case, because we routinely get questions on GTP about internet connections and PS Plus in relation to game problems; if I had a pound for every time I've had to tell someone PS Plus is only required for online multiplayer, I'd have enough money to buy a 2m credit microtransaction, or a hemi-semi-demi-McLaren.

A separate page which is not linked to from the Store page and not accessible on console does indeed describe the extent... although only to an extent (it says "most functionality"), it's just not on the Store page - and again, that's the place that you actually buy the game from, and where it is a reasonable expectation for a consumer to be able to read an accurate description.


Again, that's probably not enough on its own. However if you fold together the misleading car claim, the unqualified absent functionality, and the by-omission connectivity requirement, there's a GLO just waiting to happen for any lawyer who wants to get their name in the papers. And probably successful, as it goes before a judge.


I think the issue is that the Store page and the game landing page were written by entirely different people (if not teams of people) at PlayStation PR, perhaps based on outdated information from PD, but not PD itself.

It's a situation I've been in myself - I wrote an entire press pack for a car I'd never even driven based on what the brand told me over the course of a two-hour meeting at their UK head office and a phone call... which went out to journalists rather than the public. The pack was therefore the word of the brand, but it was written by some gonk working in PR for a different company who was not actually involved in the product at all.

But mine was accurate and ****ing awesome. This one is just leaving legal doors wide open.

The right to a refund is a separate matter and covered by different principles, so I won't argue with you on that. I can see potential grounds for that though, but I'm no a specialist on that.

As for the "selling of cars" and "internet requirement", let's then just agree to disagree. There are simply way to many legal considerations present to convince anyone otherwise, so I'll leave it at that, save it to say that past legal precedent provides an easy defense, including your own country. What I can convincingly say though is that many of the matters such as this are ultimately judged on precedent set by case law and if you read that, you'll see that a mere non-compliance with what was advertised per se is not in itself sufficient to constitute "misleading". There's much more involved.

 

[Famine]

You have more faith in the legal system than I do.

I don't "do" faith. This is simply rational.

You have a product sold on a feature that isn't in it, with misleading headline figures, and functionality requirement that isn't even mentioned, all found within the information provided at point of sale without qualification.

That's enough for a GLO, and by virtue of being enough for a GLO it's enough for a successful outcome (lawyers tend not to take on civil cases that are unlikely to succeed).

I'm absolutely sure that any legal team assembled to defend the GLO will come up with arguments that it's all totally fine because... that's their job, but there's a lot of work for them to do to argue against any of these things.

I don't think it's a slam dunk, because that's not how anything works.

However, consumers did win a Class Action (US) against Sony for the dual OS functionality delete from PS3. And that was successful even though the functionality was technically still there - you just needed to not update the console firmware beyond a certain point (which meant you couldn't play online PS3 games), and it would still work.

 

[Staquix]

I hate to admit it but Riptide is right. There have been so many games with much bigger false statements that have never been taken to court. It's just not profitable to try and pursue these kind of legal actions and the company's that make these statements and there fleet of lawyers know it. I have read and made this same call to arms in a lot of forums and nothing ever comes of it. Sony\PD knows exactly what it's doing and have done it with full knowledge of these ramifications. This may have run in to a worse case for them but they knew there would be backlash. The thought has crossed my mind that this is some kind of PR stunt to draw attention to there product but that's my tin foil hat speaking. What they have done is morally questionable but they have made damn sure it's not actionable and checked it twice.

 

[opelgt1969]

While I can't say if all the cars are available through Roulette Tickets, the fact that there's a maximum of 17 Roulette Tickets on day one doesn't actually get us any closer - and indeed even if you fluked a car on every one of them, each car you win on an RT removes one possibility of a BC Invitation to buy a car you can't ordinarily buy.

No player can acquire and drive more than 366 cars on day one in GT7, even if they somehow managed to acquire enough credits (which they also cannot do; it looks like even if you can stay awake for 24 hours and use all remaining seven hours after GT Cafe and have pre-order and 25AE bonuses, you will have just 13.9m credits; that's not enough for even the invite cars!) to get them.

Even if you added in the Music Rally cars (which you can drive, but you need to unlock each MR in order, eating into your GT Cafe and credit grinding time) and the 13 Arcade Mode cars you can drive if you hoy the patch cable out, we're not at 400, never mind over it.

Nobody is driving "over 400 cars from day one". Except Jimmy Fallon, and he's happy when he gets fifth because he has five fingers on one hand.

Unless some fool wins the lottery and spent way too much on microtrasaction!

 

[Fox Andersson]

No, there's no other meaning. But it's interesting to see that there are regional differences. I wonder how the Japanese looks. Not that this has a bearing on the accuracy of the English speaking pages it just indicates how the error might have occurred. I don't think it is malicious but that doesn't mean that it's not grounds for a refund (if one were so inclined).

Well, on the other hand the French page clearly and undoubtedly affirms that you can sell cars... I'm Italian and I'm genuinely surprised that we got the right statement at this point. Rather unusual. 😂

 

[Riptide]

I hate to admit it but Riptide is right. There have been so many games with much bigger false statements that have never been taken to court. It's just not profitable to try and pursue these kind of legal actions and the company's that make these statements and there fleet of lawyers know it. I have read and made this same call to arms in a lot of forums and nothing ever comes of it. Sony\PD knows exactly what it's doing and have done it with full knowledge of these ramifications. This may have run in to a worse case for them but they knew there would be backlash. The thought has crossed my mind that this is some kind of PR stunt to draw attention to there product but that's my tin foil hat speaking. What they have done is morally questionable but they have made damn sure it's not actionable and checked it twice.

Yes and I think Forza Horizon is a good example of that when it went to PC. No bigger mulfunction of a game (to my knowledge) than that and lawyers refused to touch it (other than the all ready defense lawyers off course

 

[Staquix]

Yes and I think Forza Horizon is a good example of that when it went to PC. No bigger mulfunction of a game (to my knowledge) than that and lawyers refused to touch it (other than the all ready defense lawyers off course

I hope that some day there is a Sandra Bullic that will eat the cost and take on one of these crap slinging big software houses. This shoddy practice is just repeating over and over though the industry and its just going to get worse until one of them eats a big settlement.

 

[Keef]

The Italian page of the store has no mention about selling cars

View attachment 1127905

Is it possible that "sell your way through a solo campaing" has a different meaning rather than selling cars?

Sell your soul? Sell your house? Sell the game on FB Marketplace to try and get your money back?

No, the word "sell" has a pretty finite meaning in English and like Famine summarized earlier the meaning of that sentence can't really be inferred as anything else.

 

[whiteusagi]

No, there's no other meaning. But it's interesting to see that there are regional differences. I wonder how the Japanese looks. Not that this has a bearing on the accuracy of the English speaking pages it just indicates how the error might have occurred. I don't think it is malicious but that doesn't mean that it's not grounds for a refund (if one were so inclined).

This from the PlayStation Store page: "伝説のGTキャンペーンモードが再び収録。車両の購入や売却、チューニング、レースをしながら、最新のクルマやチャレンジをアンロックし、シングルキャンペーンを進めて行こう。"

Clearly talks about being able to sell cars.

 

[CamPatUK]

This from the PlayStation Store page: "伝説のGTキャンペーンモードが再び収録。車両の購入や売却、チューニング、レースをしながら、最新のクルマやチャレンジをアンロックし、シングルキャンペーンを進めて行こう。"

Clearly talks about being able to sell cars.

Much appreciated. That's very interesting.

 

[MonoTonouS]

I will be taking the Bar exam in Feb of next year .

To determine what liability sony has we must first determine what law governs the transaction , For simplicity sake I will do the United States , I know jack about euro laws ( which are either much much better or much worse in these circumstances ).

Here SEE sold us software, All software is inherently contractual so we must do a Contract analysis .
Sale of good or sale of service ?
Here we can argue it was teh sale of a good, as it is a one time sale for a video game . Lawyers such as my self will argue it may be a service because you get updates, etc . But I would counter that at the end of the game's life cycle,they will still sell it and no further service will be provided . Much like a painting being made for you, you pay for the service but the end goal is the completed painting, Games as a service are really just commoditized software, EG still a good at the end of the day. I would be willing to bet both my family jewls there are court rulings on this , this was not taught to me but it doesn't take much thinking to come to this reasoning.
So they sold us a good , this is governed by the Uniform commercial code.
SEE is a merchant , defined as a individual who sells goods in kind ( videogames). Merchants have alternate rules .
ALL sales made by merchants have express AND merchants warranties, that state the product will function as advertised . Clearlly the product does not.

False advertsing is defined as any communication intentionaly made to induce, directly or indirectly, a person into buying a product.

Here this is preety darn straight forward , They tout the CLASSIC GT mode is back. Clearly trying to make people who were unhappy with GTsport buy GT7. Part of this states you have the ability to sell . Vehicles are never stated, but you can't sell ANYTHING in this game . You would have to prove YOU were induced by the selling portion to buy the game, you can try to argue that you bought it for the " classic GTmode" and by proxy the "sell function".

Remedies ?
Contract is undone (recinded) you get your money back
Punative damages , if the court finds SEE acted in bad faith and fair dealing, violated it's warranties and falsley advertised.

What I feel has no merit at all, and quite foolish is.

The bad economy gate keeps content . Nope . B that logic all games with progression are in violation of the law, some games require thousands of hours of grind, and some difficulty modes unlock things casual players have no way to obtain . Now if PD somehow never added the car's to the UCD's or Legend's dealership or it was impossible to access the car's , you have an argument .

Server outages . The game says online connection required for the features . You would have to prove the outages are so pervasive as to make the Contracts purpouse null ( i can't even play the game ) since they are contractualy bound to uphold their end of the deal by providing a conection. I know the box says they hold the right to terminate the online portion of the game at any time, but I doubt any judge would be ok with a company shutting servers down right after you paid .

Oh Also folks EULA's are almost all bogus and non binding .

I wish I was Bar Cert, I would love to take on this case .

 

[NLxAROSA]

It's interesting to see how with every game that's missing stuff at launch or has factual errors in the description folks call for (class action/false advertising) lawsuits, yet somehow they almost never seem to stick. Look up the cases of No Man's Sky or other notorious ones to find out why. A couple of reasons: unless your game refuses to boot and the developer/publisher has explicitly said they won't address issues, nothing will happen. Second reason: folks on forums typically know as much about legal systems across the world as they do about building a nuclear powerplant: absolutely **** all. But really, look up some notorious cases and think about whether this is worse than those. (Hint: it's not)

 

[Riptide]

Besides the notion that no one on these forums has legal knowledge, I 100% agree with you. Very few cases made it to court and those that did contained sexual or racial content or 100% not fit for purpose. Lawyers usually work on a contingency fee basis on class action cases, so they only get excited if big money for defamation or alike is involved. This is not such a case and although it might bring them in the spotlight, the probability for failure will scare most worthwile lawyers off.

 

[GETEDA]

1.09
• Now you can sell cars

-McLaren F1 '94, sell price: 500k

Period,

 

[MonoTonouS]

Besides the notion that no one on these forums has legal knowledge, I 100% agree with you. Very few cases made it to court and those that did contained sexual or racial content or 100% not fit for purpose. Lawyers usually work on a contingency fee basis on class action cases, so they only get excited if big money for defamation or alike is involved. This is not such a case and although it might bring them in the spotlight, the probability for failure will scare most worthwile lawyers off.

Wow, geeze, I guess my outline of legal issues and three years of law school count as zero legal knowledge. The reason False advertsiing is hard to stick is because you have to prove that statement was made to induce, and actualy induced you.
Being honest with my self, I was not induced by the ability to sell car's was preety much sold soley on scapes . You have to find people who have good solid proof of this . You could prove it by hsowing " John took to the fourms righ tafter aquiring his first car asking " where did the sell button go"" . In this instance it is EASY, a SLAMDUNK, to show the statment was made to induce, the issue is finding people who were induced by it. Again, MYbest argument would be " the classic GT mode " by proxy includes the ability to sell.
My ideal client would be some one who has bought prior GTgames, and skipped sport due to a lack of a traditional GT mode. This proves they were induced by a false claim . This only proves false advertsing, The breach of merchant warranty goes into the outages and lack of advertised features also falls under that .

 

[Riptide]

Wow, geeze, I guess my outline of legal issues and three years of law school count as zero legal knowledge. The reason False advertsiing is hard to stick is because you have to prove that statement was made to induce, and actualy induced you.
Being honest with my self, I was not induced by the ability to sell car's was preety much sold soley on scapes . You have to find people who have good solid proof of this . You could prove it by hsowing " John took to the fourms righ tafter aquiring his first car asking " where did the sell button go"" . In this instance it is EASY, a SLAMDUNK, to show the statment was made to induce, the issue is finding people who were induced by it. Again, MYbest argument would be " the classic GT mode " by proxy includes the ability to sell.
My ideal client would be some one who has bought prior GTgames, and skipped sport due to a lack of a traditional GT mode. This proves they were induced by a false claim . This only proves false advertsing, The breach of merchant warranty goes into the outages and lack of advertised features also falls under that .

Think you misread my post mate, I was referring to another poster suggesting no legal knowledge around and referenced my disagreement.

 

[GTboyz]

The Italian page of the store has no mention about selling cars

View attachment 1127905

Is it possible that "sell your way through a solo campaing" has a different meaning rather than selling cars?

As far as I know, nothing can be sold right now. I think the parts we won from the roulette could have been sold since it shows the value of each part everytime you get one but for some reason we couldn't.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Think you misread my post mate, I was referring to another poster suggesting no legal knowledge around and referenced my disagreement.

That would be me and I still stand by that statement. Some anon on the internet claiming they're an expert on this (just keep in mind they just have to pass the bar exam first) while at the same time ignoring every single precedence in this area doesn't scream 'knowledgeable" to me.

But if someone in here feels confident enough to hire this person to go against Sony's legal sharks then be my guest. 👍

 

[Riptide]

That would be me and I still stand by that statement. Some anon on the internet claiming they're an expert on this (just keep in mind they just have to pass the bar exam first) while at the same time ignoring every single precedence in this area doesn't scream 'knowledgeable" to me.

But if someone in here feels confident enough to hire this person to go against Sony's legal sharks then be my guest. 👍

Can agree with that.

 

[tankuroded]

If they do revise the language to remove selling from the PS website blurb, would such false advertising lawsuits still have merits?

Also I wonder if the economy issues the game have right now can be a cause of legal action. Gambling laws certainly doesn't since tickets can't be bought, but it could be argued that exploitation FOMO (a form of psychological manipulation) to push microtransactions could be a form of coercion. (Related reading, which is actually about sports events.)

 

[Riptide]

If they do revise the language to remove selling from the PS website blurb, would such false advertising lawsuits still have merits?

Also I wonder if the economy issues the game have right now can be a cause of legal action. Gambling laws certainly doesn't since tickets can't be bought, but it could be argued that exploitation FOMO (a form of psychological manipulation) to push microtransactions could be a form of coercion. (Related reading, which is actually about sports events.)

On the first question, IF it's found that misleading advertising did indeed take place, correcting the "blurb" after the fact will make no difference to the fact itself (with perhaps exclusion of the Australian jurisdiction). However, it will vastly weaken claims for damages or at least the quantum thereof. Same applies more or less if they were to add the selling option now. Do remember though that proving misleading advertising in such a case will only be one of the things that needs to be proofed and the duty to proof goes much further than that.

Your second question is very much a grey area and will largely be dependent on the laws of each state/country that governs this mine field. Countries with strict laws around this like Canada might consider that from federal view, but that's mere speculation from my side.

 

[B80]

Interesting (and amusing with all the detail dissection) read, maybe I'm too passive so fair play ro those who do decide to pursue it, but does strike me that full blown legal action is a little extreme here?

 

[NLxAROSA]

Same applies more or less if they were to add the selling option now.

This is the road that other publishers/devs often choose (see also NMS): this will be added in a future update. NMS is kind of the yardstick in cases like this, as it was a case of a game missing several major claimed features at launch and if I recall correctly none of the cases made against them stuck (or one or two stuck with no further penalty, but I'd need to read up on that). So it's fair to judge this according to: "is this a worse case than NMS? No -> highly unlikely the case will stick. Yes -> you may have a shot". Considering that selling is a minor feature and wouldn't be a problem if the economy wasn't broken (which they said they would look into), I'm giving this a low chance of success.

 

[Staquix]

This is the road that other publishers/devs often choose (see also NMS): this will be added in a future update. NMS is kind of the yardstick in cases like this, as it was a case of a game missing several major claimed features at launch and if I recall correctly none of the cases made against them stuck (or one or two stuck with no further penalty, but I'd need to read up on that). So it's fair to judge this according to: "is this a worse case than NMS? No -> highly unlikely the case will stick. Yes -> you may have a shot". Considering that selling is a minor feature and wouldn't be a problem if the economy wasn't broken (which they said they would look into), I'm giving this a low chance of success.

It would take them 3 days tops to get selling back in the game. I'm sure it was developed at some point and they made the decision to turn it off at least in the initial release. If they got notice of legal action and felt the suit may have legs they would just turn it on and say it was a planned feature. Knowing PD/Sony they would mark every cars sale price at 1 credit just to fulfill there obligations and still try and force mtx.

 

[wasenhorn]

I have a license though I don't practice the law for living and I'm not a US lawyer. I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about the US law, but this doesn't stand in the country where I got my license. If the defendant somehow didn't respond to the service of process at all, then you could win as well, but this is the literally only way you could win in that country with this case. However, winning doesn't mean you'll receive a handsome amount of money. It's more like an opposite, because the maximum amount you could claim is close to $60 (or whatever amount you've paid for this game) + $300 (for pain and suffering) + court expanses + 10% of attorney's fee you've spent, whereas you'll owe your lawyer 90% of attorney's fee and that's going to be at least several thousands.

 

[MonoTonouS]

Seems Sony is covering their booty hole and adding car selling